Knowledge Management Strategies at Xerox: A Comprehensive Report

This report examines Xerox's transformation from a copier company to a document company, focusing on its knowledge management initiatives. It details the Eureka initiative, a knowledge-sharing platform designed to improve service efficiency and reduce costs by allowing field representatives to share solutions to technical problems. The report highlights the benefits of Eureka, including time savings and the development of social capital. Furthermore, it discusses the role of informal groups within Xerox and the company's approach to motivating employees through a reward system based on personal recognition. The analysis provides insights into Xerox's strategies for managing knowledge and adapting to changes in the business environment. The report also mentions the historical context of Xerox's business model diversification, including its ventures into financial services and information technology, as well as the challenges posed by patent expiry and competition.

Running head: KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Knowledge Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
The history of business is includes significant number of organizations which faced
difficulty in conducting their general form of business or faced considerable number issues in
generating profit following their business model. Such organizations are observed to diversify
their business models in order to generate the profit and survive in the industry. The paper is
focused in specifying one such event where the organisation concentrated in diversification.
The chosen organization is Xerox Corp. The paper is able to specify the method by which the
organization changed its business model from a “Copier Company” to “Document
Company”. Along with that the paper is focused in describing the knowledge management
initiative of Xerox named as Eureka along with the features and benefits of it. Apart from that
the paper defines the role of the informal groups in the organization and the method of
motivating the people by the reward system.
1.
Xerox was an organization that had the focus towards the field of photocopying and
document processing and the organization was a leader in that particular field. The
organization was such a successful and popular brand in that particular field that the people
started to term the process of photocopying as “xeroxing”. Xerox significantly tried to
operate at the global stage with the two joint ventures in the form of Fuji Xerox and the Rank
Xerox. Fuji Xerox enabled the organization to operate in the Asia Pacific region and the other
one open the doors of Europe in front of Xerox. However the organization was observed to
try to position itself as a knowledge company and started to conduct considerable number of
initiatives for the same. Towards the end of 1960, the organization was observed to focus on
the information technology business and in that try, the organization acquired the Scientific
Data Systems, the makers of time-sharing and the scientific computers. The list also included
Daconics which made the shared logic and the word processing systems by using the
minicomputers and Vestec, an organization that produces electrostatic printers and plotters.

2KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
In the 1970s and 1980s, the organization lost its monopoly as a manufacturer of the
concerned products as a result of the patent expiry. The organization also tried to diversify
their business in the business models like the financial services, investment banking and the
insurance. In the year 1990, under the leadership of the new CEO, Paul Allaire, the
organization was observed to focus on the document processing and the development of the
digital photocopiers along with the high-end laser printers with attached scanners was
significant in making Xerox into a Document Company.
2.
The major triggering factor for the Eureka initiative was the chance to allow the field
and service representatives of the organization to exchange the intellectual capital which will
enable them to save time along with the resources. It was considered as a knowledge refinery
dedicated to a creation of a database of tips which were submitted by the field
representatives. Eureka was generally a gathering of the service tips along with the details on
the method of solving a certain problem. The main feature of the initiative was when a
representative discovered a solution for an uncommon problem then he or she will submit
that to the database for the use of the other representative facing the same problem. The
moment that new representative access the problem with laptop, the solution uploaded by the
first representative who faced the problem will be available for the new representative. The
benefits of the initiative was that it reduced 5 to 10 percent of the labour and parts cost. Tom
Ruddy, the director for the knowledge management stated that 20 percent of the time, the
solutions are not as easy to get solved on the first try and in that case, Eureka has great
significance. Apart from that it was notably time efficient and was significant in the
development of the social capital.

3KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
3.
The organization observed that mutual communication between the informal groups
were significantly absent and the people are highly reluctant in sharing the knowledge among
them. One of the major reason behind this phenomenon was the fact that they were having
significantly less amount of time from their usual operations and the absence of sufficient
amount of time was barring their interest. Apart from that the service technicians were
observed to be significantly triggered with the appreciations of their work.
The organization was observed to follow the method of personal recognition as the
rewarding policy as that was most suitable tactics in order to draw the tips of the service
technicians. Hence it was significantly helpful for the organization to hit the absolute
requirement of the service technicians to extract the tips from them.

4KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Bibliography:
"Welcome To Scientific Data Systems, Inc.". Scientificdata.Com, 2018,
http://www.scientificdata.com/.
"Workplace And Digital Printing Solutions | Xerox". Xerox, 2018, https://www.xerox.com/.